“I, prisoner for the Lord” writes Paul (Eph 4)  Now that it’s Prison Banned Book Week, I think back to a scene October 2 nd .  “ Meals for 150 inmates,” the Booking officer said describing kitchen operations. I was alone in the booking section of the jail, Two Bridges Regional, in Maine, when a single male inmate passed through from the kitchen to general population.  It was UN Day of Nonviolence and I had been arrested protesting at Bath Iron Works which manufacturers the Aegis Class Destroyers during “ Keep Space for Peace Week .” (Sign the petition to say no to NASA's reckless nuclear reactor on the moon)     I substitute today for an art class because I’m released on an unsecured $200 bond to report for arraignment November 3 rd , election day. But I voted, not only with my feet for peace. It was a pleasure to vote early for prison reform in Massachusetts. S.2371 established “a review of whether the methods of data collection are appropriately screenin...

Leonard Rifas knows his line--an activist documentary comic tradition he pioneered 50 years ago when he used a frog as the voice of authority in All-Atomic Comics . In 1982 he published the first English version of I Saw It,  a manga comic by Hiroshima survivor Keiji Nakazawa.  In Ground Zero Comics, narrators "Earl Crow" and "Mo Squirrel" treat a wide spectrum of interlocutors, e.g. military historicists, with that would play well at West Point, and fission imaging to satisfy the nuclear scientists at MIT. A graph revised for more clarity in the second printing (Aug. 2024) incorporated feedback from Alan Robock, co-author of a 2022 paper that according to Forbes "so important to the worldwide discourse on the fate of the Earth following a massive nuclear war" it has been viewed more than 200,000 times.  Portraits of suffering that elicit care, interpret statistical compassion and expose the war crime must test a mature hand. Rifas and his collaborators ha...

  I was door knocking with a big volume to ground me and a resident asked. "Just comics" I lied. I was bored on Tufts Street when I opened to Dinesh D'Souza's essay "Ignoble Savages" which stunned me, and on the train home, I read Toni Morrison's essay "Playing in the Dark," which unpacks the oblivious racism: "On July 12, 1776, he records with astonishment and hurt suprise a slave rebellion on his plantation: 'Judge my surprise...Of what avail is kindness & good usage when rewarded by such ingratitude.' 'Constantly bewildere,' Bailyn goes on, 'by his slaves' behavior...[Dunbar] recovered two runaways and 'condemned them to receive 500 lashes each at five different times, and to carry a chain & log 'fixt to the ancle.'" Three weeks ago, after receiving a housing questionnaire, I drew from  Housing the Nation  for inspiration posting of projects to social media . The Jennings in New York and ...

A reportback--  I am here in Chelmsford, MA to attend a bail hearing for a man detained by ICE 82 days ago--a week since the co-owner of small business filed my letter of support along with Senator Pat Jehlen's letter. Please donate www.ElectSpicer.com  I raised funds for signage and doorknockers $1800 from 15 donors last Friday. According to Senator Pat Jehlen, new law allows me to put your campaign support to pay for childcare so I can campaign. Thank you in advance! At Finance Committee of the Whole, I spoke up regarding the Mayor’s proposed budget that would cut the Racial and Social Justice Department funds by $200,000 and increase the Police Budget an additional $5-9 million. The Cambridge-Somerville 350.org node organized me, and I spoke to the need to provide environmental justice protections from pollution to impacted neighbors--crediting the pilot project of Ward 1 City Councilor Matt McLaughlin--which would bring air filtration units to homes already most likely to ...

Where is a middle ground in a polarization of the discourses of hope and the discourses of despair? How do ‘we’ feel about our consumption of breaking news about war?    “‘Surgeries have had to stop,’ said the hospital’s director, Dr. Mohamed Abu Salmiya. ‘Kidney dialysis has stopped and the neonatal unit is in a very dire situation. A baby has died because of lack of oxygen and electricity and heat.’ …The hospital has more than three dozen premature babies in incubators, Medhat Abbas, the director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said in a text message on Saturday”–Raja Abdulrahim, Ameera Harouda and Alan Yuhas, “ Plight of Gaza’s Main Hospital Worsens as Israeli Defense Force Close In ” 12 Nov. 2023 New York Times.    In reality, as opposed to the social construction of discourses, war is not a topic of conversation among soldiers alone (take Brian de Palma’s Redacted for example of a fictional retelling of U.S. soldiers in Iraq as point of view shifts to interpr...